Eddie Vedder Ukulele Songs Book
Arleen Smelko
Ukulele Songs is the second solo studio album by American singer and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder. It was released on May 31, 2011.[1] The album is composed of original songs and new arrangements of several standards.[2]
The album has been met with generally favorable reviews and currently has a 68% rating on Metacritic. Rolling Stone magazine gave the album three and a half stars, saying "The ukulele doesn't allow for the widest range of expression, which makes it a challenging foil for Eddie Vedder, who never met a feeling he couldn't drive through a wall. But this uke-suffused album stands up because he adapts the instrument to his idiosyncratic needs."
Vedder stated that the shows would be performed in smaller venues than those used by Pearl Jam. He cites this as a relief, as he claims "It's hard to be subtle when the back row of the crowd is 200 yards away". The tour began on June 15, 2011 and finished on July 16 in Seattle. The tour received positive reviews from critics.[10][11][12]
In 2012 Vedder was scheduled to play shows across the Southern United States beginning in April.[13] However, these dates were postponed until November, after Vedder suffered temporary nerve damage in his right arm after an earlier injury to his back.[14] European shows started in July 2012, which included his first solo shows in the United Kingdom.[15]
If you include the soundtrack album he recorded for Into the Wild, Ukulele Songs is only Eddie Vedder's second solo album. Considering the size and devotion of his cult, coupled with Pearl Jam's "No, you really shouldn't have" over-generosity when it comes to releases, it's remarkable he hasn't put out five by now. This makes Ukulele Songs even more of a curiosity: As its title makes clear, the album consists of 16 tracks of Vedder pawing the tiny, four-stringed Hawaiian instrument and warbling love songs. That's it. In a way, it's as clear-cut a proposition as you're going to get these days. You either instantly know you need 35 minutes of this in your life or are already backing slowly away.
The songs themselves date back, in some cases, 10 years or more-- presumably from around the same time Vedder wrote "Soon Forget", the two-minute ukulele ditty from Binaural. The rest of the songs occupy that same headspace. They are casual, sweet, and disarmingly unaffected, and you can practically smell the campus green wafting off them. That Vedder is putting Ukulele Songs out during this Big Blowout Year of Pearl Jam (Documentary! Festival! Reissue! Tour!) makes it seem even less of a solo project and more like a a souvenir for longtime Pearl Jam fans. It works best that way.
Indeed, in small doses, Ukulele Songs is lovely. Vedder has always been affecting when he's lovelorn, and here he's more or less curled up in a ball of bewildered hurt. "As I move myself out of your sight/ I'll be sleeping by myself tonight," he croons on "Sleeping By Myself". The album's best moments-- "Sleeping By Myself", "Without You", "Longing to Belong"-- tap the same quietly wounded melancholy as Paul McCartney's 1971 proto-indie pop masterpiece Ram.
Alas, 34 minutes is a perilously long time for most to to spend alone with just Eddie Vedder, a ukulele, and his feelings for company. Vedder's precious side has never been his best one (see: No Code's "Sometimes"), and Ukulele Songs is so determinedly twee and relentlessly self-effacing that it can feel like watching a grown man attempting to morph into a baby koala before your eyes. By itself, hearing Chan Marshall playing Bernadette Peters to Vedder's Steve Martin for the duet "Tonight You Belong to Me" is winning and funny; in the context of a full ukulele album, it is slightly cloying. Vedder has said he wants this record to inspire people to pick up the instrument and sing with their friends, an old-fashioned sentiment impossible not to be charmed by. Like a lot of Vedder's experiments, the spirit is easier to admire than the final product. The ukulele might be a great campfire instrument, but sometimes what works best at the campfire should stay there.
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Eddie Vedder has said this solo outing began with no intention of the music going public, and there's no reason to doubt him. A solo ukulele record from the leader of Pearl Jam, one of the great alt-rock bands of the last quarter century, doesn't exactly brim with marketing potential.
The narrow musical scope carries with it both freedom and isolation, qualities particularly suited to Vedder's temperament. The nakedness of the sonic palette ? this is truly folk chamber music ? also leaves him emotionally exposed, lending considerable power to songs of separation ("Sleeping by Myself"), alienation ("Can't Keep"), romantic yearning ("Longing to Belong") and vulnerability ("Broken Heart," "Once in a While"). The instrument's intrinsic sweetness seems to head off any inclination to succumb to despair, and contrasts evocatively with his sandpapery, quavery vocals.
He complements a dozen originals with outside material mostly from the ukulele's heyday in the early 20th century ("Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Tonight You Belong to Me," "More Than You Know"), helping his own songs cast a longer shadow. Who knows? Perhaps this experiment will inspire him to take on that last bastion of uncharted rock-star territory: Accordion Anthems.
In an interview with TheVine last year, Amanda Palmer said of the ukulele: "It's kind of a magical-trick instrument, because it's so easy to play but it's so incredibly charming. Just the sound of it makes people smile." Which may or may not be something Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder subscribes to, but here he comes with an entire album based on the plucky instrument?his first ever stand alone solo album under his own name. In his hands the ukulele is a means of escaping the context of rock music as well as the folk connotations of acoustic guitar, coming closer to some purer expression. Directly informed by the instrument's simple charm, Vedder indulges in threadbare, lullaby-like ballads of devotion and surrender.
In his usual bristling warmth of voice, Vedder pens the album's originals closely in spirit with its five covers. Those are all pop standards or at least well-worn oldies, and all steeped in nostalgic, romantic purity. Of those, the perennial favourite 'Tonight You Belong to Me' and the rousing 'Sleepless Nights' feature vocals from Cat Power and The Swell Season's Glen Hansard, respectively. Aside from those cameos and a guest cellist on the single 'Longing to Belong', the album is simply Vedder's voice against the ukulele's gleaming twang. Thus the songs can't help but sound an awful lot alike. (A nagging problem at the man's solo show in Melbourne earlier in the year).
These are all nice enough, and Vedder includes informal touches like the phone ringing after 'Satellite', the botched outtake 'Hey Fahkah', the ocean sounds behind 'Light Today', and the fleeting instrumental 'Waving Palms'. But what Ukulele Songs could have really used is more contrast: Vedder matches the ukulele's innate blend of sadness and sweetness rather than testing more complex lyrics against it. On the tightly wound opener 'Can't Keep', he lets loose a whoop, howl, and falsetto sigh that suggest his vocals might later break out all the more. Instead he sticks to a comfortable croon, only approaching that same abandon once more on 'You're True'.
The video for "Longing to Belong," the first single from Eddie Vedder's new solo album Ukulele Songs, is just as simple and low-key as the song itself. Abstracted footage of the ocean and Hawaiian palm trees are cut with images of Vedder, decked out in an uncharacteristically fancy suit, strumming his ukulele and looking very pensive. The clip complements the sound of Vedder's lovelorn ballad without distracting from its gentle beauty.
The debut track from Eddie Vedder's first proper solo album, Ukulele Songs, has arrived, and it's a winner. The concept of an all-ukulele album from one of rock's most ferocious vocalists has had many scratching their heads, but "Longing To Belong" should help assuage their fears.
First, the uke sounds great ? this is not your Hawaiian gift shop model. Second, there's a nice bowed stringed instrument following along. Also, it's a rather touching love song, and feels more tightly focused lyrically than much of Pearl Jam's modern output. "I may be dreaming, but I'm longing to belong to you," sings Vedder, hitting some interesting chords along the way.
Few musicians have managed to reinvent themselves the same way Eddie Vedder has over his varied career. Best-known as the frontman and one of the guitarists of the American grunge rock band Pearl Jam, Vedder showed a totally different side of himself, both musically and personally, when he released his 2011 album Ukulele Songs.
Eddie Vedder has released several great songs where the ukulele takes center stage, earning the respect of ukulele players and fans alike. This has inspired fans worldwide to pick up a uke for the first time and has left many others wondering what ukulele Eddie Vedder plays.
Pearl Jam was formed officially in 1990 and released their debut album Ten the following year. The album went on to be one of the best-selling albums in an alternative genre of that decade, and Pearl Jam saw a meteoric rise to stardom. This was due in no small part to the explosion of the Seattle grunge scene, which Pearl Jam was a part of.
As mentioned above, Vedder has several ukuleles that he likes to employ for live performances and studio recording. Vedder seems to have a penchant for unconventional instruments; he opts for ukes with more than the standard four strings or other less-than-typical characteristics.